Early Christian Beliefs About Statues and Idolatry

Origen, Against Celsus Direct teaching

Celsus then goes on to say that we refuse to set up altars, statues, and temples. He thinks this has been agreed on among us as the badge or special mark of a secret and forbidden society. He does not understand that we see the spirit of every good man as an altar, from which rises incense that is truly and spiritually sweet-smelling, namely, prayers going up from a pure conscience. Therefore John says in Revelation, "The odours are the prayers of saints," and the Psalmist says, "Let my prayer come up before You as incense." And the statues and gifts that are fitting offerings to God are not made by ordinary craftsmen. Rather, they are worked and formed in us by the Word of God, that is, the virtues by which we imitate the First-born of all creation, who has given us an example of justice, self-control, courage, wisdom, piety, and the other virtues. So in all those who plant and cultivate within their souls, according to the divine word, self-control, justice, wisdom, piety, and other virtues, these excellences are the statues they raise. In these we are persuaded that it is fitting for us to honor the pattern and original of all statues: the image of the invisible God, God the Onl

Origen, Against Celsus Direct teaching

...cannot stop now to examine. We have only thought it necessary to show briefly what we understand by temples, and what the one Temple of God truly means when it is built of precious stones. For suppose a dispute arose in some cities about which had the finest temples. Those who thought their own were the best would do their utmost to show the excellence of their own temples and the inferiority of the others. In the same way, when they criticize us because we do not think it necessary to worship the Divine Being by building lifeless temples, we present our temples to them. And we show, at least to those who are not blind and senseless, like their senseless gods, that there is no comparison between our statues and the statues of the heathen. There is also no comparison between our altars, with what we may call the incense rising from them, and the heathen altars, with the fat and blood of the sacrifices. Nor, finally, is there any comparison between the temples of senseless gods, admired by senseless men who have no divine faculty for perceiving God, and the temples, statues, and altars that are worthy of God. Therefore, it is not true that we object to building altars, statues, an

Arnobius, Against the Heathen Direct teaching

But, we are told, we build no temples for them and do not worship their images. We do not kill sacrificial victims, and we do not offer incense and wine offerings. But what greater honor or dignity can we give them than this: that we place them in the same position as the Head and Lord of the universe, to whom the gods, along with us, owe the fact that they know they exist and have living being? For do we honor Him with shrines and by building temples? Do we even kill sacrificial victims for Him? Do we give Him those other things, when taking them and pouring them out as offerings shows not careful regard for reason, but attention to a practice kept up only by custom? For it is complete folly to measure greater powers by your own needs, and to give to the gods, who give all things, the things useful to yourself, and then think this is an honor rather than an insult. Therefore we ask: for what service to the gods, or to meet what need, do you say temples have been built, and think they should be built again? Do they feel the cold of winter, or are they burned by the summer sun? Do rains pour over them, or do whirlwinds shake them? Are they in danger of attack by enemies, or by the f

Origen, Against Celsus Supporting witness

... comes next. “Let us move on,” he says, “to another point. They cannot tolerate temples, altars, or images. In this they are like the Scythians, the nomadic tribes of Libya, the Seres, who worship no god, and some other of the most barbarous and impious nations in the world.” That the Persians hold the same views is shown by Herodotus in these words: “I know that among the Persians it is considered unlawful to set up images, altars, or temples. But they accuse those who do so of folly because, as I suppose, they do not, like the Greeks, think that the gods are of the nature of men.” Heraclitus also says in one place: “People who offer prayers to these images act like those who speak to walls, not knowing who the gods or the heroes are.” And what wiser teaching do they have to give us than Heraclitus? He clearly means that it is foolish for a man to offer prayers to images when he does not know who the gods and heroes are. This is the view of Heraclitus. But they go further and despise all images without exception. If they only mean that the stone, wood, bronze, or gold worked by one craftsman or another cannot be a god, then they are ridiculous in their wisdom. For who, unless h

Minucius Felix, Octavius Supporting witness

Chapter 32. Argument: Nor Can It Be Said that the Christians Conceal What They Worship Because They Have No Temples and No Altars, Inasmuch as They are Persuaded that God Can Be Circumscribed by No Temple, and that No Likeness of Him Can Be Made.

Origen, Against Celsus Supporting witness

And, in general, we see that all Christians strive to raise altars and statues as we have described them and these not of a lifeless and senseless kind and not to receive greedy spirits intent upon lifeless things, but to be filled with the Spirit of God who dwells in the images of virtue of which we have spoken, and takes His abode in the soul which is conformed to the image of the Creator.

Tertullian, On Idolatry Direct teaching

...fail to be the means of doing what he supplies to another to do. Look, here is an even more closely related principle already established beforehand. If a supplier of public victims comes over to the faith, will you allow him to remain permanently in that trade? Or if one who is already a believer takes up that business, will you think he should be kept in the Church? No, I think not, unless someone will pretend not to notice the same thing in the case of a seller of frankincense. In truth, the supplying of blood belongs to some, and that of odors to others. If, before idols were in the world, idolatry, still without shape, used to be carried on by these goods; if even now the work of idolatry is, for the most part, done without the idol, by the burning of odors; then the frankincense-seller is something even more useful to demons. For idolatry is more easily carried on without the idol than without the goods of the frankincense-seller. Let us thoroughly question the conscience of the faith itself. With what mouth will a Christian seller of frankincense, if he passes through temples, spit down on and blow out the smoking altars for which he himself has made provision? With what

Arnobius, Against the Heathen Direct teaching

...tant matters? Or do they have freedom to go wherever they please, and to leave their own places and images? If they are forced to remain, what could be more miserable than they are? What could be more unfortunate than for hooks and lead bonds to hold them fast like this on their pedestals? But if we say that they prefer these images to heaven and the starry seats, then they have lost their divine power. But if, on the other hand, whenever they choose they fly out and are completely free to leave the statues empty, then the images will at times stop being gods. And it will be uncertain when sacrifices should be offered, and when it is right and proper to withhold them. We often see that artists sometimes make these images small, reduced to the size of a hand, and at other times raise them to an enormous height and build them to a marvelous size. If so, then it follows that we must understand either that the gods shrink themselves into little statuettes and are compressed until they become like some odd body, or again that they stretch themselves out to great length and spread into vast size in huge images. If this is so, then in seated statues the gods should also be said to be s

Arnobius, Against the Heathen Direct teaching

19. Do the gods live in images? If so, is each god wholly in one image, or divided into parts and limbs? For it is not possible for one god to be in several images at the same time. Nor can he be divided into parts by being cut up. Suppose there are ten thousand images of Vulcan in the whole world. Is it at all possible, as I said, for one deity to be in all ten thousand at the same time? I do not think so. Do you ask why? Because things that are naturally single and unique cannot become many while keeping the wholeness of their simple nature. And they are even less able to do this if the gods have the forms of men, as your belief says. For a hand separated from the head, or a foot divided from the body, cannot show the perfection of the whole. Otherwise, it would have to be said that parts can be the same as the whole, even though the whole cannot exist unless it has been made by gathering its parts together. Moreover, if the same deity is said to be in all the statues, then all reason and sound judgment are lost from the truth, if this is assumed: that at one time one being can remain in them all. Or else each of the gods must be said to divide himself from himself, so that he is

Lactantius, The Divine Institutes Supporting witness

and those very qualities which they most foolishly admired, they expressed by statues and images, and consecrated, so that they might for ever remain as memorials of the folly of those who had believed that gods owed their origin to the slaughter of beasts.

Lactantius, The Divine Institutes Supporting witness

...ially pious, they then become especially impious. For the more religiously they honor those earthly images, the more wicked they are toward the name of the true divinity. And so they are often troubled with greater evils as the reward of their impiety. Because they do not know the cause of these evils, they place all the blame on fortune, and the philosophy of Epicurus finds a place. He thinks that nothing reaches the gods, and that they are affected neither by favor nor by anger, because people often see those who despise them happy, and their worshippers miserable. And this happens for this reason: when they seem to be religious and naturally good, people think they deserve nothing like the things they often suffer. However, they comfort themselves by accusing fortune, and they do not see that if fortune really existed, she would never harm her worshippers. Therefore, piety of this kind is rightly followed by punishment. And the deity, offended by the wickedness of men who are corrupt in their religious worship, punishes them with heavy misfortune. Although they live with holiness in the greatest faith and innocence, yet because they worship gods whose impious and profane rite

Tertullian, De Corona Supporting witness

...it, but "from idols"; that is, from any likeness to them. For it is an unworthy thing that you, the image of the living God, should become the likeness of an idol and a dead man. So far we maintain that this attire belongs to idols, both from the history of its origin and from its use by false religion; on this ground also, that while it is not mentioned as connected with the worship of God, it is more and more given over to those in whose antiquities, as well as festivals and services, it is found. In a word, the very doors, the very victims and altars, the very servants and priests, are crowned. In Claudius, you have the crowns of all the various colleges of priests. We have also added that distinction between things altogether different from each other, namely, things agreeable to reason and things contrary to reason, in answer to those who, because there happens to be the use of some things in common, maintain the right of participation in all things. Therefore, with reference to this part of the subject, it now remains to examine the special grounds for wearing crowns, so that, while we show these to be foreign, indeed even opposed, to our Christian discipline, we may prove

Arnobius, Against the Heathen Supporting witness

...lling it seriousness and pretending to be grave, to tell something so tasteless and so foolish—that images were made by the ancients to restrain wrongdoing and to stir up fear in the wicked and impious? Were the men of that age and time so empty of reason and good sense in their understanding that they were kept from wicked acts, like little boys, by the unnatural savagery of masks, by grimaces, and by bugbears? And how has this changed so completely, that although there are so many temples in your states filled with images of all the gods, the crowds of criminals cannot be restrained even by so many laws and such terrible punishments, and their audacity cannot be overcome by any means? Wicked deeds, done again and again, increase all the more, even though laws and severe judgments try to reduce the number of cruel acts and suppress them by the restraint of punishments. But if images caused men any fear, then the making of laws would stop, and so many kinds of torture would not be established against the boldness of the guilty. But now, because it has been proved and established that the supposed fear said to come from the images is actually empty, people have turned to the ordi

Tertullian, On Idolatry Supporting witness

The images of those things are idols; the consecration of the images is idolatry.

Lactantius, The Divine Institutes Supporting witness

...t the one born from Saturn and Ops, then no image except his own should have been placed in all the temples. What do the images of women mean? What does the doubtful sex mean? If this Jupiter is represented in them, the very stones will confess that he is a man. They say that the poets spoke falsely, and yet they believe them. Yes, truly by the fact itself they prove that the poets did not speak falsely. For they make the images of the gods in such a way that, from the very difference of sex, it appears that the things the poets say are true. For what other conclusion can be drawn from the image of Ganymede and the figure of the eagle, when they are placed before Jupiter's feet in the temples and are worshiped equally with him, except that the memory of wicked guilt and debauchery remains forever? Therefore, the poets invent nothing completely. Perhaps something is changed and hidden by indirect shaping, under which the truth was wrapped and concealed. This is so in what was told about the dividing of the kingdoms by lot. For they say that heaven fell to Jupiter, the sea to Neptune, and the lower regions to Pluto. Why was the earth not taken as the third part instead, unless thi

Arnobius, Against the Heathen Supporting witness

Those images which fill you with terror, and which you adore prostrate upon the ground in all the temples, are bones, stones, brass, silver, gold, clay, wood taken from a tree, or glue mixed with gypsum.

Arnobius, Against the Heathen Supporting witness

39. But lately, O blindness, I worshipped images produced from the furnace, gods made on anvils and by hammers, the bones of elephants, paintings, wreaths on aged trees;

Lactantius, The Divine Institutes Supporting witness

These are they who taught men to make images and statues;